


Jason’s Brilliant Idea

by lucycourageous



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Grief/Mourning, HIV/AIDS, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Including the Author, M/M, Missing Scene, Swearing, The lesbians are only mentioned in passing, Trina-centric (Falsettos), all the father-son relationships, everyone is trying their best, set between Canceling the Bar Mitzvah and Jason’s Bar Mitzvah, sorry about that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25857460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucycourageous/pseuds/lucycourageous
Summary: “I’ve decided about the bar mitzvah.”Trina’s heart sinks – from how nervous he looks, he must be about to tell her he wants to cancel it – but she does her best to keep her expression neutral.“I want to have it at the hospital.”Or: how Trina feels about rearranging her son’s scrupulously-planned bar mitzvah.
Relationships: Dr. Charlotte/Cordelia (Falsettos), Jason & Marvin (Falsettos), Jason & Mendel Weisenbachfeld, Jason & Whizzer Brown, Marvin & Trina (Falsettos), Trina/Mendel Weisenbachfeld, Whizzer Brown/Marvin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47





	Jason’s Brilliant Idea

“Mom?”

Trina jolts in surprise.

It’s not just the fact that it’s twenty minutes to midnight and Jason should have been asleep an hour ago, or that she didn’t hear him sneaking up on her in his bare feet.

He called her ‘mom’.

She can’t remember the last time he called her that. These days, he pretty much exclusively uses ‘mother’, and more often than not combines it with an eye roll and a tinge of knowing exasperation that makes him seem twenty years older than he actually is.

But now – ‘mom’?

She looks up, turning away from the puzzle on the coffee table.

It’s not a large one, only 500 pieces, but it’s been sat out on the table for weeks now, incomplete and taunting her. No matter how many times she sits down to it, she can’t seem to concentrate long enough to put more than a few pieces in their place. As a metaphor for the state of her life right now – a jumbled mess that she can’t seem to wrangle into any kind of sense no matter how hard she tries – it’s a little on the nose.

“What’s up, honey? It’s late.”

Jason’s head is bowed and he’s playing with the zipper of his old red hoodie. He’s been growing lately and it’s verging on too small, but he’s barely taken it off in the last two weeks. Trina worries, but Mendel has told her not to pester him about it; the hoodie makes him feel safe, and God knows he needs all the comfort he can get at a time like this.

She snatches a glance at her husband where he sits in the armchair to her right. There’s a book open in his lap but he’s not reading it; he’s paying close attention to their son, a slight crease between his dark brows.

Jason’s been quiet ever since their visit to the hospital the day before yesterday, the day they tried talking to him about the bar mitzvah.

It was evidently the first time it had even occurred to Jason that Whizzer might die – and really, ‘might’ was being generous, wasn’t it, you only had to look at his pale face and shaking hands to see how serious things had become – and he hadn’t handled it well.

She shouldn’t be surprised. It’s the first time Jason’s ever come face to face with death, let alone had to seriously grapple with it; he was too young at the time to remember the deaths of her father, Marvin’s mother, and they were distant figures in any case, too far removed for him to notice the difference when they were gone. This is something else entirely.

Whizzer is real and immediate; Whizzer is the only person who can talk properly to Jason about baseball, able to keep pace with his encyclopaedic knowledge of batting averages and retired players long after the rest of them have lost track. Whizzer can make Jason laugh when no one else can, rolling his eyes with such pantomime precision behind Marvin’s back that even Trina can’t stop a smile. Whizzer is sarcastic and funny and gives great advice, whether the topic is fashion or how to swing a baseball bat or how to not give a fuck what other people think of you.

Losing Whizzer will mean the end of all those things. 

Death has a face now. It looks like a family photo with a gaping hole at its centre, a chessboard missing one of its pieces. A party without one of the principal guests.

There’s a sob trapped in Trina’s throat, a sob that is also a hysterical giggle because she knows it’s absurd that she’s come to care so much about the man she once caught rutting up against her husband on the living room couch. Unfortunately, knowing that does nothing to alleviate the emotional vertigo that’s been afflicting her ever since Whizzer was admitted to the hospital.

“Jason, dear?”

“I’ve decided about the bar mitzvah.”

Trina’s heart sinks – from how nervous he looks, he must be about to tell her he wants to cancel it – but she does her best to keep her expression neutral.

Mendel sets his book aside, leaning forward to join the conversation, “That’s good, Jason. What did you decide?”

Jason takes a deep breath and then the words burst out of him like a flood, fierce and desperate and defiant and he looks so much like Marvin that it leaves her breathless and a little frightened, “I want to have it at the hospital so Whizzer can be there, with just us and dad and Dr Charlotte and Cordelia. And we have to have it soon before Whizzer-”

“Hey,” Mendel says, as Jason cuts himself off just as abruptly as he began, his teeth falling together with an audible click, “it’s okay, buddy, take a breath.”

Trina watches Jason take in a gulp of air and realises that her own lungs are burning. A little embarrassed, she lets out the breath she’s holding. Her hands are clasped together in her lap as if in prayer. She forces them to relax.

They sit in silence, two adults and a boy. She wonders which of the three of them feels most lost.

“I just don’t want him to miss it,” Jason mumbles, turning his gaze back to the floor, and Trina’s heart feels like it’s been stuffed in a vice.

Mendel turns to look at her, beseeching.

_What should we do?_

It’s a good question.

Some part of her – a large part, she can’t deny – is reluctant, indignant even. They won’t get the deposit on the hall back if they cancel this late in the day, and though the invitations haven’t officially been sent out yet, enough of their guests know to make it a hassle to contact them all and tell them plans have changed.

And why should she have to change her plans for Whizzer anyway? Hasn’t she had to give up enough for him already, her husband, her son?

Even before he and Marvin got back together, even two years ago when everything was awful, Jason had always liked Whizzer, respected him even. She remembers them sitting side by side on the couch together after one of those terrible ‘family’ dinners Marvin forced them all to endure, their heads together, looking almost conspiratorial. She watched them from where she stood in the kitchen, her hands damp, her forehead sweaty, resentful but fascinated: Jason was actually smiling for once, gesturing wildly as he spoke, and Whizzer, in profile, all shining hair and tanned skin and bright white teeth, nodded enthusiastically, grinning as he replied.

And there was Marvin, sitting in the armchair and smiling at his lover and his son, evidently delighted with how well they were getting along.

She remembers fleeing from the kitchen, just making it to the guest bathroom in time to throw up the remains of the dinner she’d spent hours making and barely touched. Even after her stomach was empty, the nausea remained, and with it the frightening conviction that she did not belong there, that she was the trespasser all along. Would any of them even notice if she were to slip out into the night and disappear forever?

Even now the memory is enough to make her stomach twist unhappily.

But now Whizzer is the one halfway out the door, his life seeping away as surely as the colour is being leached from his skin: tanned and beautiful no longer, Whizzer looks more like a ghost every day. And all she can do – all any of them can do – is watch.

Trina has no desire to be haunted. Not that she thinks she’ll get much choice in the end.

Cordelia was going to cater for the bar mitzvah anyway, so there’s no harm done there. The hospital room is hardly beautiful but with flowers, some candles, a bottle of champagne… It won’t be the grand affair she’s been planning for months, but maybe a simple celebration will be enough after all: just friends and family and a reminder that even in the middle of the tragedy that is eating its way through them all like rust, life can still go on.

Vaguely surprised at herself (but this whole thing is utterly absurd after all), she nods at Mendel and the look he gives her is so tender that she almost breaks under it. Reaching out with a gentle hand, he squeezes Jason’s shoulder, and his voice is warm with pride, “We think that’s a great idea.”

Jason’s head snaps up, and even though it’s Mendel who delivered the news, he throws his arms around Trina’s neck in a rare hug. She holds him tight, relieved that for once she seems to have made the right choice.

“Can we have it tomorrow?” Jason pulls back to look at her, anxious again, “I don’t want to wait too long in case…”

“I’ll speak to Charlotte and your father first thing in the morning,” Trina soothes, “and Cordelia of course.”

Jason wrinkles his nose at the thought of Cordelia’s cooking, but nods stoically, apparently accepting it as a necessary evil, “Okay.”

“Come on, kiddo,” Mendel says, getting to his feet, “back to bed. Like your mom said, it’s late.”

She kisses him on the forehead before she lets him go, and as Mendel walks him back to his bedroom, an arm around his slim shoulders, she looks back down at her puzzle and manages to slot one more piece into place.

***

When Trina rings Marvin’s apartment the next morning, she’s not really expecting him to be there. He barely leaves Whizzer’s side these days, not even to sleep or eat or shower.

Once, and not all that long ago, such a display of devotion would have left her feeling flushed and teary, torn between righteous fury and twisted self-loathing – why was she never good enough, why had Marvin never looked at her that way, as if she were the only thing he had ever wanted? Even knowing the answer to those questions, it took her a long time to shake the feelings of inadequacy.

Now, she sees Marvin’s rumpled clothes, stringy hair and pale, thin face for what they are: not an insult, unconscious or otherwise, but signs of a man on the edge of falling apart. And that frightens her, because if this is Marvin when he’s still trying to hold it together, what might happen when Whizzer’s gone?

“Hello?”

She blinks, feeling the faint dampness of unshed tears on her lashes.

“Oh, you’re home.”

Marvin chuckles wearily at her surprise, and she knows without seeing him that he’s rubbing his jaw the way he always does when he’s tired, “Yeah. Whiz said he wouldn’t let me touch him if I didn’t go home and shower.”

She laughs at that, a little awkwardly, true, but still. It feels good to laugh.

“Well, I won’t keep you long,” she says, “it’s about the bar mitzvah.”

A slight pause.

“Trina, can it wait?” She can tell he’s making an effort to be gentle, but her skin prickles with instinctive resentment nevertheless, “Sorry, I just…I can’t really think about it right now.”

She takes a quick breath to calm herself before she speaks, “I know, but Jason’s had an idea that should make things easier. He wants to have it at the hospital, tonight. Just the family; you and Whizzer, Mendel and me, Charlotte and Cordelia of course.”

Silence. Trina cocks her head, wondering if the line has disconnected. But no, she can hear him breathing still.

“Marvin?”

“…I’m here.”

“I’ve already spoken with Cordelia,” she goes on as the silence continues to stretch, cautious and a little concerned, because normally if Marvin goes quiet it means he’s working himself up to something loud, “and she says she can have the food ready by this evening. And she said she’ll let Charlotte know so she can sort everything out at the hospital.” She pauses, then, as sincerely as she can: “I think it would be a lovely surprise for Whizzer.”

At the sound of Whizzer’s name, Marvin finally makes a noise, a funny choking sort of sound, something like a sneeze or a hiccup, and she’s about to ask if he’s alright when all of a sudden, she realises that he’s crying.

She stands there, frozen, the phone at her ear, listening to him sob quietly, not knowing what to do because Marvin never cries. He mopes and sulks and sometimes lashes out, but she’s never seen him cry.

With no other recourse, she does what she would do if it were Jason.

“Shhh, it’s alright.”

It feels a little unnatural, probably because Marvin isn’t in front of her, he’s halfway across the city, alone in the cramped little apartment that nevertheless must feel so empty without Whizzer, but she continues to shush and murmur until gradually he quiets.

“God, sorry,” he says, his voice thick and rough, “I don’t know where that came from.”

Of course he does; they both do. But Trina doesn’t comment. She knows he wouldn’t want her to.

“It’s okay, Marv.” She waits, then prompts him gently, “So what do you think? About the bar mitzvah?”

He clears his throat, “I think it sounds great. You said it was Jason’s idea?”

“Mmhmm.”

“That kid. He’s really something, huh.”

The pride and love in Marvin’s voice is so fierce it borders on zealotry, and she finds herself thinking about second chances and leopards changing their spots and how strange life can be.

Turning her head slightly, her eyes fall on Jason’s half-set chessboard, the pawns no longer sitting in a neat line, but staggered. Jason had made sure to make a note of Whizzer’s moves the last time they played so they could pick up where they left off next time he visited him: one lonely white pawn stands ahead of its peers, facing off against an army.

“Yeah, he is.”

He laughs shakily, “So, what do you need me to do?”

“Do?”

“To help get things ready for tonight.”

She’s glad he can’t see her because he would surely take offence at the look of frank disbelief on her face. Marvin never used to offer to help with anything.

She casts around for an easy job she can give him, something that won’t take him away from Whizzer too long, “Do you still have your tallit?”

“Yeah.” He sounds almost surprised, “I do, somewhere. Shall I bring it?”

She supposes it doesn’t matter if they use Marvin’s old prayer shawl instead of the nice new one currently sitting in the back of her closet with Jason’s other bar mitzvah gifts; if anything, it’s probably more traditional for him to use his father’s.

“That would be great.”

“Okay. Hey, Trin?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

They both know he’s not just thanking her for the phone call.

“My pleasure.”

She hears him take a slight, hitching breath.

“I’ll see you later, then.”

“Yes. Goodbye, Marvin.”

Trina puts the phone down and stands there for a moment, hugging her elbows. Then she straightens her back, brushes down her dress and goes to get a silver candelabra from the mantelpiece.

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who’s been on a Christian Borle kick recently. It’s me.
> 
> I love this musical, and especially Trina. She’s so interesting and complicated, and I hope I’ve managed to do her justice.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
